Set to a really cool music bed that will keep your Friday moving – the video highlights new functionality found in ArchiCAD 17.

Working in this version of GRAPHISOFT BIM Software will have you take a new approach to modeling. No more stacking slabs instead of using composite structures – you can model all the way to the finest detail. The result will be a more efficient modeling process, taking less time and producing precise quantity take-offs.

The addition of ArchiCAD to the solutions provided by Dowco Technology Services solidifies the company’s position and goal to remain a leader in providing integrated design solutions to the construction industry. Through their partner relations, Dowco works with a variety of segments of the industry such as structural engineers, steel detailers, precast concrete detailers, general contractors etc. and Graphisoft ArchiCAD fits in well with their vision of bringing all participants of the construction process together on to a well rounded, model centric – BIM compliant workflow.

It has been the experience of the staff at Dowco that ArchiCAD will help open new doors within the construction industry  since it facilitates a connection with architects, designers and engineers as they collaborate on projects. The open workflow found in ArchiCAD BIM software enhances the way general contractors and many other sub trades can get involved – even making that involvement happen early on in the projects so that they become more integrated in the construction process.

We’ve already covered internal links

Let’s now look at two ways to connect the documents to the wider digital world. The PDFs created from ArchiCAD are smart. We’ve already established this. But did you know that they are smart enough to recognize URLs? If you include a web address in a note, as part of a detail, within your titleblock, or wherever, it will be clickable. It will launch the linked website. So once again if we demand (encourage) the use of digital documents instead of printed ones, these URLs within the set can provide a lot of deep connections. Instead of providing a cut sheet, you can link to the cut sheet on the manufacturer’s website. Instead of including a note that says “Brick” it can say “Brick, www.specificbrickmaker.com/thisbrickseries/itbetterlooklikethis.jpg” Less stress. Less confusion. And if the link goes dead, it’s a sign that perhaps that product isn’t available. Or if the link updates, then… well there are some decisions to make. But that’s part of another discussion.

Speaking of links and products. Any image or PDF placed on a Layout in ArchiCAD using the Drawing Tool (as opposed to the Figure Tool) can be linked to, just like any saved view from the View Map. Imagine creating a materials sheet. Maybe it comes after the schedules. This theoretical sheet includes images, some text, and URLs of all the important materials and finishes. There could be links throughout the set to that page, and then from that page to the wider world. Just a thought.

Jared, I get it. Digital is great. But come on. You live in a fantasy world. I’m going to keep printing because of X, Y, and Z for at least a few more years. Deal with it.

You’re right. Let’s be honest: printed sets aren’t going away as fast as they should, or as fast as I wish they would. So what’s an intermediate solution? QR codes. Which is odd because they are in a sense more futuristic than mere web addresses. QR codes on a printed set can provide the same links to non-local data that a clickable URL in a PDF can. So reread the beginning of this post and replace URL with QR code. All that functionality is more or less still available in a printed set. What I really like about QR codes is that they allow you to open, digitally, additional information on a separate device. So if you have a printed set—or a PDF set on a large screen—you can use a QR code reader on your phone or tablet to access the additional information on a second screen. Be it a webpage, product data, a video, an image, the contact info of the team; whatever can be linked to a QR code can be accessible.

QR codes can and should be in your documents today. Adding them is as simple as making a free QR code at a website like QRStuff.com, saving the image file, and then placing it in ArchiCAD. And placing images in ArchiCAD is just ‘drag and drop’ (unless you need the added functionality of placing them using the Drawing Tool, then it’s two or three extra clicks).

How many smart phones are on a given construction site in North America? Enough. More than enough. If there’s a set of documents littered with QR Codes, unless the property is remote and lacking cellphone service, those QR Codes can be read and the information they point to can be accessed. And imagine an urban site. What are the odds that there’s accessible wi-fi, free or otherwise? Pretty decent; and only getting better with every passing day.

Part 5: Your Turn

We’ve now talked about a variety of internal and external links. Hopefully you’ve learned a few tricks about ArchiCAD and will try some new techniques in your documents. Whether you’re moving to all digital output or staying with print for now, thanks to the capabilities of ArchiCAD you can get more intelligently organized and better accessed information on those documents. That’s BIM.

How are you making your documents smarter? Are you using hyperlinks and QR codes? What else can we do to BIM-ify our documents? How else can we make our documents keep pace with all the other advances happening in our field?

I’m sure there are many examples of how powerful a PDF set created correctly from a well-done ArchiCAD file can be. Organized, searchable, internally hot-linked… it’s not just a digital facsimile of a paper set. It’s much more robust, just like an ArchiCAD model (or any BIM) is much more than the digitization or 3D-ization of traditional work. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating: PDFs created from ArchiCAD are searchable. So if you want to find a specific note, just search for it. Want to find a specific detail on a plan? Search for it. For instance if you want to find detail 1/A403, just search for “1 A403″. Even with the text on two lines, the search function will find it.

A Question of Labeling

If you search in a PDF for 1 A403, you can find every instance of 1/A403 in the documents – BUT if the actual detail 1/A403 is just labeled detail 1 on the sheet A403, then the search function won’t find it. Even just searching for 1 on sheet A403 is probably going to be useless, turning up results for ever text string with that number in it. This suggests that it is better to label your details as Number/Sheet Number rather than just Number as you will have a more concrete term for which to search.

As an alternative, you could label your details D01 through D99, continuing the numbering scheme across all sheets of details. This style of numbering would give each detail a uniquely searchable ID.

We are fortunate ArchiCAD makes this very easy to do. Setting up the details to automatically be numbered something like D01 instead of 01 is simple. On your first detail sheet, go to the Layout Settings and under the IDs of Drawings on this Layout tab, set up the ID Prefix and ID Style you want.

Getting the detail numbering to be continuous across multiple sheets is just as easy. Go to the Layout Settings of a given sheet and check “Continue Drawing ID sequence from previous Layout” under the IDs of Drawings on this Layout tab. The result will be something like this: D01 through D06 are on sheet A501, and sheet A502 starts with D07.

The reason to consider this numbering system is two-fold: D01 is easily searchable where as 1 is a useless term to search for. Think about how many times the number 1 might show up in a set of construction documents. Therefore from our new understanding of searchable documents, D01 adds value whereas 1 does nothing for us.

The other reason to consider a unique ID, rather than a generic one, is a consequence of the default available drawing titles. Unfortunately the built in drawing titles that Graphisoft provides can give you either a drawing number and sheet number or drawing number and back reference list. Well it can do all three, but the drawing title gets really ugly. For someone who knows GDL this should be a SUPER easy fix, since it’s just reconfiguring the data on NCS Drawing Title 2 16. But as it stands, if you want to use back references extensively like I discussed in the last post, then you’re looking at a drawing title with no sheet number (NCS Drawing Title 16, for instance). That is disappointing, but maybe a non-issue. If you think about labeling all drawings per type instead of per sheet, then adding the sheet number in the title is unnecessary. Imagine if all your elevations were E01 through E10, all your sections where S01 through S22, all your details were D01, D02, etc… the clarity of markers on various sheets and the number of ways to jump to the view expands greatly (hyperlinks, uniquely searchable text strings). Couple that with the reasons for doing sheets in grouped series, and a drawing’s ID and sheet number reveal a lot of information about what the drawing will contain.

That sounds very BIM, doesn’t it? Taking a dumb concept and making it smarter; embedding more data into it. The reason we didn’t do this in the past wasn’t because it’s a bad idea, but because it was too cumbersome to do manually. But we’re doing BIM; we’re using ArchiCAD. This can all be automated. Labeling drawings 1 through 24 or A through Z per sheet is just a convention. We do it because that’s how we’ve always done it. Not because it’s the best solution. On your next project, try a different way of labeling and see what happens.

GRAPHISOFT has developed a powerful modeling tool that can handle even the most complex designs. More than a compatibility update – ArchiCAD 17 is a one-of-a-kind, BIM-based construction documentation solution. It simplifies the modeling and documentation of buildings even when the model contains an unprecedented level of detail.

Models are Structurally Correct Out of the Box

ArchiCAD 17′s end-to-end BIM workflow, featuring Priority Based Connections with Intelligent Building Materials, automatically provides structurally correct sections and details, offering maximum ROI on the work invested in creating the Building Information Model, and allowing the model to stay live until the very end of the project.

Continued Open BIM Support

GRAPHISOFT remains in the forefront of the Open BIM movement through the development of ArchiCAD 17. The software supports Coordination View 2.0 and expands capabilities for defining new IFC data such as Concept Design BIM 2010 (required by GSA (US), Statsbygg (Norway), Senate Properties (Finland), FM Handover (required by COBie), and others. This includes currency unit export, calendar date type IFC properties and IfcSystems Assignment Support for system type elements such as MEP systems.

Enhanced Performance

It’s fast, strong and can handle even the finest details on the most complex projects, thanks to added background processing. The model supports the creation and manipulation of large, complex models and faster generation of complex model details.this is a big amount of work, anxious to see it in action.

Built in Energy Evaluation and Presentation tools with BIMx and EcoDesigner

The built-in energy evaluation functionality of ArchiCAD uses StruSoft’s VIPcore calculation engines. Using ArchiCAD 17 architects can perform improved energy evaluation based on standard-compliant technology, supporting multiple thermal blocks. The early design stages can include accurate energy calculations which can be shared in various formats including PDF, XLS and IFC.

Further enhancing the share-ability of your model, GRAPHISOFT has incorporated BIMx into ArchiCAD 17. This innovative, interactive, BIM communication tool converts desktop and laptop computers, iOS and Android tablets and smart phones into full-fledged building model explorers. Any and all stakeholders can upload, browse, and download interactive BIMx models from any part of the world.

Improved 3D Editing

3D cutting planes can be set on any view of the model. This feature enhances the visualization of large models and improves the 3D editing processes – because you can display the most relevant parts of the building in 3D view. 

See it in Action

For a live demonstration of ArchiCAD 17, please register for the upcoming “BIM Lives in the Details” webinar scheduled for June 18th.

The Publisher in ArchiCAD is going to convince you to try something new.

Giving each major drawing or view its own sheet will make the hyperlinks more useful, but regular navigation gets a bit more complex (more sheets means more to manually sift through when you’re not using the hyperlinks within the drawings to navigate the set). Fortunately the way ArchiCAD creates PDFs via the Publisher solves this problem, if you know what you’re doing. The Publisher in ArchiCAD turns both subsets and individual layouts into bookmarks in the outputted PDFs. This is awesome. It makes jumping between sheets amazingly easy. And all your organizational logic that was in the ArchiCAD file is preserved. Which, as a BIM Manager, I geek out about because it means that a well organized project (ie, a good template) will yield a well organized set of documents; finally what we BIM Managers do behind the scenes to make daily working life easier trickles down to the contractor and client.

Done properly both layout books and publisher sets are easy to create and maintain. And this should remove a lot of the work that is traditionally associated with sheeting and arranging drawings. Automate as much as possible. Place layouts in Subsets (the Layout book’s term for folders). Auto-number subsets by their order in the Hierarchy of Subsets. Propagate their numbering system down into their sheets.

This will mean every sheet made is automatically numbered and ordered correctly. Your sheets should be labeled as (discipline) (series) (sheet number). For instance architectural plans should be the A100 series, structural plans should be the S100 series, etc. I don’t really care if elevations are A200 or A300 or A400. But they should be A#00. Why? Because it makes ordering sheets so amazingly easy. Need a new sheet? It slips right in without any fuss. It is true that with everything auto-numbered, adding one sheet or fifty sheets isn’t an issue. And everything updates automatically. But just because sheet A30 can easily become A31, doesn’t mean there’s not a better way to handle sheet numbering. Back to the point: if you put your layouts in subsets, when you make the PDFs any new drawing is already in the correct Bookmark for easy finding. See the two images earlier in the post. Note that in those images of the Publisher Set and PDF Bookmarks, all of the numbers you can see are automatic. Nothing is overridden or done manually once the initial logic is set up. If you find there’s a sheet that doesn’t fit in your automatic logic, change your logic or change your sheet to make it work. Every time you override a sheet number, drawing number, or drawing title (drawing titles should be linked to the placed view, more on that another time), the overall value of your data is diminished. I’ve recorded a video over on Shoegnome that talks more about all this layout book organization, if you’re craving more details or some related information.

In the next post I’ll present the argument for a detail on a sheet being labeled with both a number and a sheet number (or a unique searchable number).

The space presented several challenges in that the client was happy with the feeling of the space, but they needed to have sound proofing in several areas. The warehouse provided very little natural light. The location of the bathrooms, in the middle of the building near the entrance, while not particularly esthetically pleasing was not changed to keep costs in check.

Photograph by Douglas Hill

This tenant improvement to a 12,000 sf warehouse was designed to create a contemporary work environment for an up-and-coming TV production company on a tight budget. Strategic placement of wood paneling creates a graphically coherent aesthetic that ties together the programmed blocks within the industrial building envelope. To maintain as much open space as possible, the enclosed low-ceiling offices were pushed to the perimeter and a small service block was located in the center of the space, leaving two larger open zones to either side.

Working with ArchiCAD’s zone tool, Stone planned out the space – blocking a diagram of the way the rooms could be laid out. In this way, the client was able to visualize just how many different rooms could be created within the existing space. At the beginning, Stone chose to provide simple sketches through the ArchiCAD BIM to help her client see the possibilities without imposing material or color decisions onto their mindset.

Photograph by Douglas Hill

“My client preferred to keep the openness of a warehouse feeling, but because of the type of work they do, they needed separate rooms for a variety of services,” explained Stone. “The sketch option helped me show the best way to use what little natural light was available. I found that for an interior concept presentation, the ability to keep everything black and white was a help. Colors and material choices can be a distraction at the early design phase if the client is not really set on a particular way to go.”

After that initial presentation, Stone says a plan was finalized – where the final colors and material palates were added to the schematic.

“We handled it in general terms, but were able to pop in a wooden siding to give a quick overview of what that material choice would give to the space.”

At every phase of the remodeling, ArchiCAD provided assistance in making design choices. Stone was able to show alternative choices for the amount of glass the executive and junior executive offices would use, how large the main meeting areas would be and even schematics of potential furniture layouts. As the BIM of the interior design became more detailed, Stone was able to provide data to the mechanical engineers so they could plan duct work placement and other aspects of the building.

Stone works with Artlantis in conjunction with ArchiCAD to help create lighting quickly and effectively – an important factor of working with interiors. The client asked Stone to provide a natural feeling within the space, so she devised a type of wood skin that wrapped throughout the interior.

“They wanted to move away from bright colors and bring an organic and natural feeling to the offices and even the edit bays. ArchiCAD software was tremendously helpful for me in being able to figure out the origin of the wood and what precise textures would look like in the space.”

In this first post, let’s cover Linked Markers in PDF sets.

If you create a multi-page PDF from ArchiCAD using the publisher (the 4^th tab in the Navigator), the markers, whether detail markers, section markers, elevations or Back References, all function as internal hyperlinks. This means if you click on a section marker in plan, the PDF will jump to the sheet with that section. Pause for a moment, open up a PDF you created from the Publisher, and test it out. Cool huh?

If you’re not familiar with the Publisher, watch this video. For the hyperlink functionality and many other reasons you want to start using the Publisher.

Back Reference is a really cool under utilized feature in ArchiCAD. When you enable Back Reference on a placed drawing, you can show the sheet number(s) where the source marker that generated that drawing lives. The Back Reference appears in the drawing title. So if an elevation is on sheet A203, but the elevation marker shows up on A101, A102, and A103, Back Reference (if enabled) will automatically show those sheet numbers in the drawing title. With elevations or sections that’s nice, especially if it’s a complex project with multiple buildings or odd angles or those little elevations that only show bits and pieces of the building, and are impossible to find. BUT it’s with details, worksheets, and interior elevations that it gets really cool. Those are all usually on just one sheet. Think about doing an enlarged plan using the Detail Tool. Back Reference makes clarifying where that vignette lives in the larger project context super easy. Or think about all the interior elevations a typical project can have. Having those automatically labeled with Back Reference is great. Now each interior elevation not only can be labeled with a descriptive title, but also be labeled with a useful reference (that is a hyperlink in the PDF set) to what sheet the room is on. Again imagine a large project with the plan broken up over two or more sheets. Which sheet is First Floor Janitor Office on? Back Reference will make that simple, automatic, and obvious.

This gets all the more useful when you remember that those Back References are hotlinks within the PDF created via the Publisher.

The limitations of hotlink markers.

Unfortunately internal PDF hotlinks are not perfect; there are limitations. If you click on a section marker in plan, it will jump to the sheet with the section on it. But if there are four sections on that sheet, it won’t zoom into the one you selected. So there’s still some brainpower required. This situation is exacerbated with details, where there might be ten, twenty, or thirty to a sheet. Back Reference suffers from this problem less. You’re probably going from an interior elevation to a plan that takes up an entire sheet. Of course it won’t zoom into that marker. Which is unfortunate.

Details raise one further hitch with hotlinked markers and Back References. Back References only link back to Source Markers. Which complicates things a bit. If a detail shows up on multiple sheets, the Back Reference will only jump you back to the source instance. But this is also a good re-enforcer. You should be doing your details in individual Detail windows anyways (and not in a giant grid like the olden days), since that’s necessary for Thermal Bridging Simulation with EcoDesigner STAR.

That’s enough for today. In the next post we’ll discuss some solutions to these limitations. In preparation, you might want to read this post over on my blog that discusses the bigger picture of architectural documentation in the 21^st century.

At the workshop, you’ll hear from nationally known architect, John Boecker. John Boecker serves as a founding partner in 7group, an internationally recognized multi-disciplinary consulting firm focused on green and regenerative development. As an architect, his practice has focused exclusively on green buildings and integrative design since 1996. He served on the LEED Steering Committee from 2002–2009, and he Chaired the USGBC’s national LEED Curriculum Committee from 2002–2007. He has served as LEED Faculty since 2001, and he was appointed a LEED Fellow in the inaugural class of 2011. Boecker will use actual case studies to address the conceptual “bones” of integrative design and discuss a step-by-step process to implement this type of design process into a workflow.

During the workshop, attendees will be asked to shift their “mental models” toward a whole systems way of thinking. They’ll be shown the benefits of adopting an integrative process and applications of the concepts that support it. The workshop will also provide ways to incorporate examples of integrative design strategies that are targeted at enhancing building performance.

The workshop is worth 1 AIA Credit and is scheduled for Thursday, May 9th

Vuka Co-op
411 Monroe Street West
Reception 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Program 6:30 to 8:00pm

Register here

When moving between versions, whether it’s ArchiCAD or another program, we face a few converging issues

ArchiCAD 2 in 1986

Most enterprise software is now on a yearly release schedule. Looking back at the history of ArchiCAD, we’ve gotten a new version every year since the 2006 release of ArchiCAD 10. But that’s just part of the story, look closer at the link. Since the release of Radar CH in 1984, only 1985, 2000, and 2005 haven’t seen either a new release of ArchiCAD or a major numbered update (such as 2003′s ArchiCAD 8.1). So really we could say ArchiCAD has been on a yearly release schedule since the very beginning. We’ve just switched to whole numbers since 2004; no more decimal versions. That all means a four year old version of ArchiCAD is also four releases behind.

Likewise the release cycle for operating systems is also compressing. Between 2001 and 2012 we’ve had Windows XP, Vista, 7, & 8. In the same time we’ve gone from Mac OS X 10.1 to 10.8. While Microsoft isn’t on yearly updates yet, Apple is. So expect OS X 10.9 later this year. What that means is we get compatibility pressure from the operating system side. For Windows users, you’ll want to be aware of these issues. And for Mac Users, check here. Those links will tell you what versions of ArchiCAD are supported on the latest operating systems, and which just flat out won’t work (hint: anything older than ArchiCAD 10 won’t work on Mac OS X 10.7 or newer).

I recently wrote about hardware requirements for ArchiCAD. Refresh your memory. The issue to be aware of is that your ‘fairly new’ machine is probably a lot older and more out of date than you think. A machine from a few years ago running OS X 10.6 or earlier, or Windows XP could have potential issues with everything from not enough RAM, CPU speed, or cores to only being 32-bit and having a weak video card. And that’s not even touching upon unsupported operating systems, drivers no longer being updated, and other more general compatibility issues with software that may indirectly affect ArchiCAD.

As a result of these three issues, each year we are faced with multiple layers of new software (and their subsequent hardware requirements). Versions we are familiar with (Windows XP or ArchiCAD 7, both 2001) are positively ancient in the digital world. Or they might not be that many years old, but they have so many new releases superseding them (Mac OS X 10.6 or ArchiCAD 13, both 2009). What that means is we need to begrudgingly accept that last year’s big release quickly gets left behind.

Backwards Compatibility vs Forward Compatibility

Backwards Compatibility means a newer version of a software can open a file made by an older version of the software. In other words, ArchiCAD 16 can open an ArchiCAD 10 file. On the surface this is a no brainer: New is better than Old; New opens Old. End of story. But. But. But. Annoyingly that’s not the end of the story. ArchiCAD 16 can’t open any file older than ArchiCAD 10. So it can’t open a file made with version 9, 8.1, 7.0, 6.5… I couldn’t find the exact explanation as to why, but I assume it’s a coding thing. Any readers know the answer? The solution to backwards compatibility beyond the event horizon of ArchiCAD 10 files is to use the File Converters that Graphisoft provides. These will let you open files as old as ArchiCAD 4.1. But effectively because of hardware issues (see the link about File Converters), only ArchiCAD 6.5 and newer are really accessible for Mac users. I think PC users are in a better situation, assuming they still have WIBU keys instead of CodeMeter keys.

Forward Compatibility means an older version of a software can open a file made by a newer version of the software. So in our ArchiCAD world, that would describe the (Herculean) feat of opening an ArchiCAD 16 file in ArchiCAD 10. Everyone more or less understands—at least implicitly—why we shouldn’t expect this to be possible. I don’t need to fill this post with all the changes between ArchiCAD 10 and 16, but there are a lot. While many of us wish it’d be easy to open new files in older versions, we all get that the Morph Tool didn’t exist five years ago so ArchiCAD 12 wouldn’t understand how to read that data. HOWEVER… if you really need to get a new file into an old version there is an arduous process you can take. Be Warned! With each step backwards in time, you’ll lose more data.

Every version of ArchiCAD, as far back as I can recall can save backwards one version. So if you are using ArchiCAD 16, you can save backwards to ArchiCAD 15. But anything that was new to ArchiCAD 16 will be lost in the back-saved version (so all your Morphs will vanish). Regardless of the lost data, one step into the past is easy. If you need to go more than one step, your task isn’t any harder, just more annoying. If you needed to go from say ArchiCAD 16 to ArchiCAD 13, you would save from 16 to 15 in ArchiCAD 16, then open ArchiCAD 15 and save from 15 to 14, then open ArchiCAD 14 and save from 14 to 13. By then you’d have lost a lot of info—Morphs, Shells, Renovation Statuses, other improvements—but you’d have the core of your model in an earlier version. I’ve had to do this on a few occasions. I was working on one project where I was in ArchiCAD 14 modeling and my teammate was doing 2D structural overlays and details in ArchiCAD 11 (don’t ask). Fortunately the data going backwards and forwards in time was all 2D. This meant lost data was pretty much negligible. Also note that for this process to work, one has to have all the intervening versions of ArchiCAD installed.

Library parts (Objects) have their own special quarks about backwards and forwards compatibility. This ArchiCADwiki article explains the process nicely. Since ArchiCAD 13, when you open an older file in a newer version, ArchiCAD will automatically replace the Objects with their more recent analogs, if they exist. So for instance the Object House Model 13 will be replaced with House Model 16 when you open an ArchiCAD 13 file in ArchiCAD 16 with the ArchiCAD 16 library loaded. Note this only works with Objects that are from ArchiCAD 13 or newer. An ArchiCAD 12, 11, or earlier Object won’t replace itself. The link at the beginning of this paragraph also covers Migration Libraries. Those are important with migrating forward in time. ArchiCAD 16 and presumably future versions come with migration libraries for ArchiCAD 10 and higher. These library subsets fill in the gaps of the old objects that aren’t replaced with newer versions. Think of Migration Libraries as discontinued Objects. If you need access to older libraries, but don’t have them on your computer, you’re in luck. You can download ArchiCAD libraries from versions 4.55 through 9.0. This link will tell you more.

Now that your brain is overloaded and spinning, some critical points

1. Saving backwards to earlier versions of ArchiCAD can be avoided if you agree to use the oldest version of ArchiCAD that your team members need to use (ie, if the firm you’re teaming with is stuck on ArchiCAD 14, use ArchiCAD 14 with them. If you’re on a newer version, your license will let you work in earlier versions—though with the CodeMeter keys only as far back as ArchiCAD 10. Alternatively, get them to upgrade. Seriously. No one should be using ancient versions of ArchiCAD. Here’s why.
2. Don’t neglect your old projects. Get the intern to spend a day doing Save As on all the old ArchiCAD files. At a bare minimum save everything up to ArchiCAD 10. But while you’re at it, save up to ArchiCAD 16 (or whatever the latest version is when you read this). I presume we’ll be able to open ArchiCAD 10 files for a long time, but what happens when we can’t any longer? You’ve been warned. If you don’t have an intern, get a case of beer and do it while watching Netflix. This should be a fairly mindless process. And for now, just keep the project linked to the old libraries. No need to migrate the parts as long as the old ones are readable in ArchiCAD 16 (certain old Objects not working in new versions is also beyond the scope of this post, see helpful link #3 below).

You need to remember to future proof your data

I can’t stress the above statement enough. Did you follow everything I wrote? Probably not. That’s okay. And probably partially my secret goal. None of the above really matters if you always work with current (or fairly current) software and bring your backlog of data with you. Is it annoying that you have to spend a few hours or a day every couple of years making sure your old projects are in an accessible version? Sure. Is it a waste of time? Absolutely not. Unless you’re 100% okay with not having access to your old work.

Some Helpful Links

1. Converting Old ArchiCAD Files
2. Migration Guide for ArchiCAD 16
3. Library Object Globally Unique Identifier
4. Need Old libraries from before ArchiCAD 10? Here’s your answer

I’d love to write a follow up post detailing some personal experiences with migrating files between versions. Do you have something to share? Both success and horror stories: I want to hear them both. Send me an e-mail. I’d love to interview you. If you’re still not satisfied and want more on this and related topics, I suggest you read this post next.